Tag Archives: Ertebølle culture

Having recently completed a round trip by train from London to Copenhagen via Hamburg, I’d love to share some of the highlights from the outstanding—content, preservation and display—early prehistory at the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen (Danish | English). It’s probably the best Mesolithic exhibition I have seen and I can but urge a visit if you have not yet been.

Between The Bogs and The Sea

The exceptional preservation of organic materials in Denmark (also northern Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, southerm Scandinavia and Baltics)—including human beings, clothing and artefacts—relies on two factors: (a) the rich, wet, anaerobic conditions in their fast-disappearing peat bogs; (b) that many Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic activity areas now sit below sea level, a reflection of significant sea level rises after the last glaciation (although some land in the west if Jutland has risen by 50-60m after the weight of ice was removed, and continues to rise very gradually, as in Scotland—although southern England is still sinking).

Image | Broddenbjerg idol, dated to the late Bronze Age (not Mesolithic, unfortunately). More info »

We do have similar preservation in the UK, but far less frequent. Sites such as Star Carr & Flixton, Uxbridge, Thatcham, Bouldnor, Stainton West, Amesbury and Goldcliff East are/were rare survivals. Modern land drainage, development, together with industrial-scale agriculture threaten to destroy the tiny fraction that might yet remain. Star Carr will be (organically) gone, dissolved in acid or dried out within our generation, after 10,000 years in soggy peace. Star Carr 2010 pictured ↑

If you’re interested in the travel itinerary, briefly, and it is well worth doing by train, here’s a rough summary. I used the Deutsche Bahn website (timetables) and then called the UK DB office to book everything, and they were able to find the best fares. There’s also some excellent advice on the brilliant website Seat61 that includes other options such as a ferry from the UK and the Köln or Hamburg sleeper trains to Copenhagen.

Bruxelles-Midi to London St Pancras by last Eurostar d. 19.52 (to be safe), a. 21.06

Some panorama views to tempt you – more below too. L to R | The Vig aurochs, Amber carvings and pendants, the dugout boat from Broksø (Early Neolithic) →

Pictures | Click to enlarge | Taken in “museum mode” without flash – sorry for the quality. This is a selection only since there’s so much more in the museum, all compelling. The Bronze and Iron Age collections are particularly disturbing, given the degree of preservation (with often palpable human violence, and nice wool costumes).

Navigating Danish Early Prehistory

Like archaeology in most other countries, Denmark’s is littered with “Cultures” or “Techno-complexes” derived from 19th and early 20th Century attempts to rationalise (and typologise) material culture—artefacts and common feature traits such as burial practices or settlement types—against a chronological “evolution”. Cultures, in this sense, are groups of like traits usually named after a “type site” or region. So, for example, we have the Creswellian (after Creswell Crags in Derbyshire) as the type site for upper Palaeolithic, late glacial lithics and bone & antler artefacts. Here’s my rough attempt at unraveling Denmark’s culturescape:

Cultural Period

Dates BC

Chronozone

Sea Level

Economy

UK Equivalency

Late Palaeolithic

Hamburgian

13,500 – 11,100

Warm BøllingGlacial Dryas IIWarm Allerød

90m lower

Mobile hunters, tundra

Creswellian
(Magdalenian)

Federmesser & Brommean

11,900 – 10,700

Allerød interstadial

Mobile hunters, tundra, ameliorating

Ahrensburgian

10,500 – 9000

Younger Dryas glacial to PreborealTundra

60m lower

Mobile hunters

Presence in Scotland, Orkney, Hebrides, England

Mesolithic

Maglemosian

9600 – 6000

Preboreal to BorealWarm

30m to 5m lower, 1m / 100 years, isostatic land uplift in west 50 – 60m, less in east

Great story out this week. Decorated and painted paddles dating back to the Ertebølle “culture”—late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher—have recently been found in Horsens Fjord, Denmark. They were being damaged by strong ocean currents.

“The indispensable dugouts enabled the Ertebølle people to travel far and wide. They could even travel across ice in winter, so it was probably not uncommon for them to meet people of foreign origin.”

The paddles have been Carbon-14 dated to around 4700-4540 BC, the Middle period of the Danish Ertebølle period.

“The painted paddle blades bear witness to the decorations and colours which have undoubtedly been a regular part of everyday life in the Stone Age, but of which we only get the occasional glimpse.”